The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has floated a Rs 614-crore tender for completing the remaining 14 km of the Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway in Tamil Nadu, moving the delayed inter-state corridor closer to full completion. NHAI officials said the selected contractor is expected to finish the work within four months of the contract being awarded.
The 263-km expressway is being developed at an estimated cost of Rs 18,000 crore and is intended to reduce travel time between Chennai and Bengaluru from the current five to seven hours to around three hours. The project was announced nearly 14 years ago, inaugurated in May 2022 and divided into 10 packages for execution.
Around 230 km of the expressway has been completed, according to the report. The 71-km Hoskote-Bethamangala section in Karnataka has been fully completed and opened to traffic, while approximately 90 per cent of the work in Andhra Pradesh and the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border sections has also been completed.
In Tamil Nadu, the project covers 106 km, of which 92 km has been completed, leaving 14 km pending. NHAI officials said the latest tender follows the completion of an initial 11-km section of the delayed Arakkonam-Kancheepuram stretch. The remaining work is now expected to be taken up after the contractor selection process.
The project was initially scheduled for completion by March 2024 but faced delays linked to land acquisition, the shifting of utilities and the performance of contractors on some stretches. Electricity lines and drinking water pipelines had to be relocated in parts of the alignment, adding to the implementation challenges.
The 25-km Arakkonam-Kancheepuram section was also held up by litigation. Officials said that issue has now been resolved, allowing work to proceed on the affected package. The completion of this section remains important for creating a continuous high-speed road link on the Tamil Nadu side of the corridor.
“Following the completion of the initial 11-km stretch, we have now floated a tender for the remaining 14 km at an estimated cost of Rs 614 crore. A contractor will be selected shortly, and the work is expected to be completed within four months,” NHAI officials said.
The latest tender comes as the project’s financial requirements have risen. Officials said the revised project outlay for the relevant works has increased to Rs 10,507 crore from the original estimate. The report did not provide a revised overall completion date for the full expressway. The immediate milestone is the selection of a contractor and the start of construction on the remaining Tamil Nadu stretch.
